Hello and thank you. Thank you on behalf of the 1000 more young women diagnosed with breast cancer this year and the thousands more across Australia who need support and connection. So much has happened over the past 12 months and every year when we launch our iconic fundraising calendar (this is our 9th!) I’m reminded how we are able to achieve such great things in a short amount of time because of the incredible generosity of our so brave volunteers, our pro-bono partners, our board and from wonderful people like yourselves who fundraise and buy our products in order for us to continue our mission.

SO BRAVE. AUSTRALIA’S YOUNG WOMEN’S BREAST CANCER CHARITY.

Like many of the women who have graced the pages of our Calendars for the past 9 editions, I was not too young for breast cancer. At 32 years old, with my newborn son and my 3 year old daughter, I heard those awful words “I’m sorry, you must have known something was wrong, you have breast cancer”. My family history of breast cancer starts with me – there was no cancer, no genetic predisposition. I’ve never smoked, I didn’t drink, I was young, fit and healthy. Dates, like those in the Calendar have a funny sense of place. One date
– Monday 20 January – I heard those fateful words, and my entire world changed.

My experience with breast cancer, and the struggles to just be understood, cared for and investigated properly are not unique. In some ways, my own sense of injustice started the fire that got me through 18 months of intense treatment, which included surgeries, chemotherapy, hormone therapy, radiation, immunotherapy and an IVF fertility preservation process. It also changed my sense of self – as a woman, as a mother, in my career and in my community.

So Brave – Australia’s Young Women’s Breast Cancer Charity started as a fundraising project to raise awareness of young women getting breast cancer and to empower young breast cancer survivors. Over the past 9 years, it’s become so much more. Synergistically, we were incorporated as our own charity on 20 January – three years to the day from when I heard those fateful words.

On 3 July 2024, we held our first Parliamentary event – co-hosted with the Parliamentary Friends of Cancer Care and Cure – Senator Deborah O’Neill, Senator the Hon. Michaelia Cash and Kylea Tink MP. It was an incredible milestone for our organisation, celebrating and launching our world-first resource for young women with metastatic breast cancer.
It seems fitting therefore, that recognising that date, in our tenth year of operations, we should symbolise its significance.

That is why on 3 July 2025, So Brave will be marking the occasion with the first National Young Women’s Breast Cancer Day to recognise the unique challenges faced by young women diagnosed with breast cancer. This National Day will be held each year to raise awareness that young women get diagnosed with breast cancer too and more needs
to be done to ensure young women are diagnosed early, educated and supported in their experience with breast cancer.

We look forward to sharing this special occasion with you all and thank you all for your continued support,
Rachelle | Founder and Managing Director
So Brave – Australia’s Young Women’s Breast Cancer Charity

Why the 2025 So Brave Calendar is special:

This year, we are proud to present our annual Calendar dedicated to recognising that young women get breast cancer too. We have brought back our signature bodypainted empowerment experiences and continued our natural photoshoots with ladies who have a diagnosis of metastatic breast cancer. 

We are so excited to share our 2025 Calendar with this combined focus to show the wide range of experience for young women facing a breast cancer diagnosis.

The impact of one person's lived-experience cannot be underestimated. The disproportionate impact of breast cancer on young women needs recognition - the gaps in diagnosis, treatment, support and survival that thousands of young women face, year on year. 

Young women's stories and those of the ones they've left behind deserve to be shared. Young women deserve access to breast health information and an early diagnosis. Awareness around breast cancer in young women needs to be understood and issues of disparity for young women diagnosed with metastatic breast cancer need to be resolved. It is well established that young women diagnosed with breast cancer have considerable difficulty navigating their diagnosis and treatment. For the disproportionately greater number of young women who are diagnosed with de novo or advance onto metastatic breast cancer, their needs are even greater.  

For us at So Brave, Australia’s only young women’s breast cancer charity, we believe the impact of breast cancer at a young age should not be tolerated. So we thank you for your continued support and are so excited to share this, our 9th edition of the So Brave fundraising Calendar with you.